Cremation Remains Turned to Diamonds

Published 9:00 pm, Monday, August 19, 2002

Diamonds are forever will hold new meaning for people hoping to have precious gems made from carbon captured during their cremations.

Funeral homes, including four in the Chicago area, have signed up to offer the memorial diamonds, which will start at about $4,000 for a quarter-carat.

Greg Herro, chief executive of Elk Grove Village-based Life Gem, acknowledges some will consider it a "pretty wacky idea."

But Jack French, a Joliet man who suffers from emphysema, said he would like his remains fashioned into diamonds so his wife and five children have something besides his few personal possessions.

"This will be something that is beautiful, has value and comes right from me," French said.

Doug Ahlgrim, director of Ahlgrim & Sons Funeral Services' four Chicago-area locations, is training his staff to explain the new product.

"This is sorely needed for families who choose cremation," Ahlgrim said. "An urn is beautiful in its own right, but you certainly can't take it wherever you go."

Life Gem said two funeral homes in New York and one in Wisconsin also have agreed to be vendors of the gem service.

The process begins when technicians collect the carbon created when a body is cremated and have it turned into graphite. The graphite is then sent to a lab in Germany that creates the stones by simulating the intense pressure and temperature needed to make diamonds.

Life Gem's process should work, said Kenneth Poeppelmeier, a Northwestern University chemistry professor.

"At first I thought, 'This is odd, but it's a well-developed science,'" Poeppelmeier said. "Then the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is an odd, well-developed science a lot of people would appreciate."

The process does not appear to violate state laws regulating crematoriums, said Kim Kuntzman, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.